NGAROMA SETTLERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 282, 18 February 1928, Page 9

NGAROMA SETTLERS

STATE AID SOUGHT AUCKLAND MASS MEETING The cause of the Ngaroma settlers has been championed by a section of the Auckland public, and a mass meeting was held yesterday to discuss the position.

In a series of resolutions that were passed, the Government was blamed for lack of consideration to the farmers on the bush-sick settlement. One resolution called upon the Government to publish the findings of six separate commissions of inquiry which, it was stated, had been held in respect to Ngaroma, and which had been kept secret. Xh© opinion of the meeting expressed in another resolution was that ‘‘the Government’s treatment of the Ngaroma soldier settlers by ruthlessly cancelling their titles and extracting onerous declarations as to prospective gifts and legacies from their relations, is a disgraceful insult to every soldier settler in New Zealand and intolerable to the decent outlook of every citizen of this Dominion.”

The third resolution was couched in similar terms:

‘‘This meeting considers the Ngaroma settlers have been deceived and unjustifiably treated by the present Government,” it read, “and calls on the Cabinet to establish a judicial court presided over by a judge of our Supreme Court to determine “(a) Whether the Ngaroma settlers were deceived by the Government when taking up their selections; "(b) If the answer is ‘yes,’ what form of compensation should be given; ‘‘(c) Directions to the Government as to what the nature of compensation should be."